A Kept Woman (16 page)

The kitchen wasn’t empty; Kara and Helen, Jake and Felix’s assistants, were in there eating yoghurts and lounging against a wall. They stopped talking as soon as

Diana appeared. She pasted a smile on her face.

‘How’s it going?’ Diana murmured.

‘Oh, not bad.’ She had the definite impression that redheaded Helen had just been talking about her. She did not enjoy that nasty smile that was hovering on the girl’s lips. ‘We’re just discussing …’

‘… the traffic,’ Kara said, hastily.

‘Oh, it’s dreadful. Insane.’ Diana tried to be friendly.

‘Excuse me, I have to get Susan a herbal tea.’

They drew aside.

‘Where do you guys live?’

‘East Village.’

‘Alphabet City,’ they said, exchanging looks. Who did

the limey broad think she was? Everybody knew she lived on Central Park West in a place that was bigger than their entire apartment buildings.

‘I have to go downtown tonight,’ Diana lied manfully. ‘We could give you a lift.’

‘Your husband’s coming to pick you up?’ Helen askel. Helen tugged down on the navy Sears suit she’d bought on sale last week. She was thirty-eight, and the chances of finding a suitable man seemed to plummet with every month that went by. She was a new hire to this company, but she didn’t like Diana either. Young women who married older men meant older women couldn’t find a decent man to save their lives.

‘Oh no. Ernie works late usually. No, I’ll send for my driver when I’m ready to go.’

Send for my driver? Kara thought: She was still paying off her student loan.

‘I think we’ll manage,’ Helen said dryly. ‘Excuse.me,’ Kara snapped.

Both women turned on their heels and marched out, shooting Diana nasty looks.

Hell, she thought, what’s got into them?

Tired, exhausted and horribly messy, Diana struggled through her first day. Her cubicle was tiny and windowless, Susan was on her back all day, she had paper cuts on her fingertips and snags in her nails, and the work they did ask her to do was boring in the extreme. Her shoes were broken, her sheer make-up had not survived and she felt wiped out. On top of which, everybody in the office was sneering at her. Sneering! At her!

Diana tried to console herself with the thought that her beauty budget would have eaten up about half Susan’s salary, but she felt ugly and heavy and klutzy, and that didn’t much help, either. Outside Kara’s window, across the hall, light, miserable rain was starting to fall and grey clouds obscured the tops of the skyscrapers. Diana sighed and looked at the clock for the millionth time that’

afternoon. Only four fifteen. Time must run on a special slow schedule in offices.

Her phone buzzed and she wearily depressed the button.

‘Hi, Susan. Herbal tea or coffee?’

‘It’s not Susan, it’s me.’

Just what she needed. Diana bit down on her lip. ‘Yes, Mr Cicero.’ Ooh, that hurt. Mr Cicero. She wanted to slap him, but that probably wasn’t wise. Damn him for offering her this lousy job, and damn him for smirking at her so that she was too proud to quit! ‘What can I get you?’

‘Nothing. You can get in here. Bring a notepad.’

‘OK.’ Diana grunted. There was a low chuckle from the phone.

‘Careful, you’re sounding a little too enthusiastic,’ Michael’s disembodied voice said.

Diana hung up on him and marched into his office. She shut the door behind her, and the whirring sounds of the Xerox and their constantly ringing fax machine were silenced. Almost involuntarily, she drew in a long, shuddering sigh of breath.

Michael was standing looking out of his window at the wet, crawling traffic marching slowly up Seventh Avenue. Diana regarded the stocky, firm set of his back, the muscles visible even through the newly tailored cloth. He turned round and gave her a broad smile, tilting his head and showing her his busted-up nose.

‘I read your dress-code report,’ he said. ‘Take a seat.’ Diana flopped into the chair in front of him and scowled. ‘There’s something wrong with the report? I do think, Mr Cicero, you might have said something before now.’

‘I only just got around to reading it,’ Cicero said flatly. ‘I had more important things to get to.’

Of course you did, you patr0nising jerk, Diana said to herself. ‘I see.’

Cicero lifted her two pieces of paper in one large paw

and waved it at her. ‘I read this. I was quite surprised.’ ‘It can’t have been that bad,’ Diana protested, angrily. Hell, Michael thought, look at that girl. He told himself not to start thinking about how a female employee looked. She’d annoyed him when she swarmed in this morning looking so gorgeous and polished and disturbing, and now that she seemed to have gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson, she was.., stunning. Undeniably. And still, so arrogant. The aristocratic, upward tilt of her head, the soft, defiant slight .pout of her lips : .. Cicero had an intense desire to crush her to him and kiss all that rebelliousness away.

‘It wasn’t,’ he said, as coldly as he could manage. ‘Why

don’t you’let me finish before you interrupt me?’

‘I’m sorry, Mr Cicero.’

‘It was actually quite well done. I gave you very spare notes and you produced something clear and businesslike. You’ve got a crisp turn of phrase.’

Thanks for the English lesson, Diana thought. ‘I’m glad you were pleased. Does this mean I get a promotion?’

She crossed her legs, the wrong way, to hide her busted strap as best she could, and tossed her blond hair behind her shoulders.

‘No, it doesn’t. You need more than one job done well to get promoted. It might mean that I increase your workload, though. Give you some other basic duties and rosters to type up. Such as guidelines for ordering in office supplies. We don’t have an office manager here, so

all my executives take care of that stuff themselves.’ ‘Sounds thrilling,’ Diana grunted.

‘Don’t be sarcastic, please, Diana. Everybody starts at the bottom.’

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‘I suppose you started at the bottom, did you?’ Diana demanded. She knew she should drop it, but somehow her mouth was no longer listening to her brain.

‘That depends.’ Her boss lolled back in his chair in that confident way of his. His dark eyes on her made her shift in the chair. ‘If you call working eighteen-hour days and cycling for miles with two boxes of books, going door to door trying to shift them, starting at the bottom, then yes, I qualify.’

Diana shrugged. She didn’t particularly care to hear about Michael Cicero’s struggles. Nobody here gives a damn about me, she thought. Why should I care about them?

‘Now, take this down. These are our rules about calling in sick, vacation planning and reordering supplies. I’d like you to type them out like you did with the dress code. Maybe you could put together a small folder for everybody with all our separate policies in. It can be your project.’

My, how thrilling, Diana thought. ‘What about all my filing and typing?’

‘You’ll still be doing that. This will be additional.’ Diana pushed herself to her feet, furious, and took a step towards Michael Cicero. To her extreme annoyance, he did nothing but grin.

‘You want to quit?’ Cicero asked. There was a gently amused note in his voice. ‘It’s OK, really. This is very basic, very easy work that lots of kids would like to do. I can see why you wouldn’t want to persevere. You hardly need the salary.’

‘It’s got nothing to do with the salary,’ Diana said, fuming. ‘It’s to do with the work.’

‘What work? All you have to do is file and answer the phones and make some coffee. You should see the hours Susan Katz put in when she first came to work for me. You maybe think writing up a few reports is too .tough?’

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‘Of course it isn’t.’ Diana sat down again. ‘I wasn’t going to quit - Mr Cicero.’

‘Then why were you standing up, glaring at me?’ Diana shook her head. ‘I was - just stretching. I’m perfectly happy here,’ she said, bristling with hostility, ‘and I’ll be happy to organise all your reports.’

‘Good.’ Michael looked down at his notepad, which offered some refuge for his eyes, away from the serious double threat of her breasts. ‘Then let’s get started.’

It was only half four when Diana left the office.

‘Do you mind if I leave early, Susan?’ she asked. ‘My head is splitting. I think I have a migraine coming on.’

Susan Katz smirked. ‘Of course not. I’ll be here for at least another two hours. If the refrigerator is clean, you can go home now.’

The look on her face said she just couldn’t wait to tell Michael about this.

Well, thanks, ma’am. ‘See you tomorrow, then,’ Diana said, as cheerfully as she could fake. She switched her computer off at the wall and tidied up the papers on her desk, rather than give the bitch any more ammunition. She was so enervated, she could hardly think straight. All she wanted to do was to sink into the limo, go home and get into a spa bath. What madness had possessed her to tell Michael Cicero she didn’t want to quit? Oh well. Time enough for that tomorrow. All Diana cared about was getting out of that door.

As the elevator doors hissed shut behind her, Diana felt her spirits lift. Tomorrow she’d quit; and that bunch of catty secretaries could go to hell with their herbal teas and their filing. She would have to find another way to be interesting to Ernie. A vacation, for example. Yes. Right now that sounded really good. Diana poked her head out of the door and saw the familiar, comforting sight of Richard, her driver, with the limo purring sedately at the

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curbside, waiting for her. As he opened the door for her, muttering something about a pleasant day, Diana felt as though she were shrugging a backpack full of heavy weights from her shoulders. A bath was what she needed. Americans didn’t bathe, they showered, but she needed a soak, an hour with a cloud of scented water courtesy of Floris and then a long rub-down with some Shea butter from L’Occitane. Once I’ve changed for dinner and taken off these shoes which pinch like hell, Diana told herself, firmly, I’ll feel more human. She might call Felicity and see if she wanted to do something, maybe catch a last minute show, like Rent, or Chicago again. Possibly the answer was just to make an emergency call to AnneMarie, her French reflexologist, and have her rub her feet for an hour.

Ernie liked to keep a full bar stocked in the back of the car, although he rarely drank during the day. It was just there to impress other CEOs. Right now Diana was grateful for it. She poured herself a Bourbon and Coke and sipped it through the heavy crystal, watching mfdtown slip noiselessly past her sound-proofed, darkened windows.

Eventually she started to relax. The tight coils of pressure in her back began to unwind. It was dark and cold outside, but their building loomed up in front of her, well lit, friendly and welcoming. Her stupid little job suddenly seemed a total joke. She would quit tomorrow, definitely. Let that bitch Susan make her own goddamn coffee.

The doorman blinked at her as she swept into the lobby, giving him an automatic smile. Diana didn’t talk to the help much, but she made a point of smiling and being friendly. Ernie tended to ignore them. The heavy, gold-decorated elevator hissed open,, and Diana stepped inside and pressed the button for the penthouse, turning her key in the lock.

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The apartment was well lit even though Consuela had a half day off. Maybe she had forgotten to switch off the lights. Diana kicked off her shoes, groaning pleasurably in anticipation of her long soak.

Then she froze. There was a voice coming from the bedroom. A woman’s voice. Diana knew her staff and her friends, and this wasn’t one of them. A prickling burst of adrenaline crackled through her skin. Could it be a burglar? But that was impossible. Security here was outstanding. Even the elevator shaft was wired with alarms. Maybe Consuela had invited one of her friends over while the lady of the house was at work. If so, she would have to deal with it herself. Ernie would fly into a rage. Sighing, Diana slipped her shoes back on and walked quietly over to her bedroom.

It was a woman. Tall and much thinner than Diana, almost bony from the back. She was standing bent over in front of Diana’s exclusively designed walk-in closet, the small inner sanctum that was just hers, where even her husband and her best friends never came. A tight fist of anger closed around Diana’s heart as she noticed what the woman was wearing: one of her dresses, a silky, red velvet evening gown by Richard Tyler, cut to drape over her voluptuous curves like a a toga over a Roman goddess. It hun loosely off the bony shoulders of the intruder. With a simmering wash of rage bubbling up inside her, Diana glanced down to the woman’s feet. They were poking out of her brand new Manolos, the strappy sandals she had so delighted .in when she picked them up in his boutique last week. Diana was disgusted now. She would never wear them again, she knew that. Were jobs so easy to come by in America these days that Consuela would do this to a good employer?

Diana found the voice that seemed to have frozen in her throat.

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‘Excuse me,’ she said, loudly and coldly. ‘Exactly what

do you think you’re doing?’

The intruder spun around, mouth open, starting with a

little jump.

It was Mira Chen.

Diana stared down at her. Her brain seemed to be as frozen as her body.

How repulsive. How disgusting. How - how silly. Mira Chen. The name had been haunting her suspicious thoughts for days, and now she was here in the flesh. A small part of Diana, a small corner of her brain - the part that said ‘you’re drunk’ when she was - couldn’t help but run over the face and figure of her rival. She had hardly noticed her at the last dinner party, there was nothing there but a vague memory of hating the tight, tarry dress the woman had worn.

Diana’s red dress hung off Mira like a nasty smell hanging in the air. It was so much too big for her. She felt a sudden pang of insecurity about her body. The extra folds of fabric, peeling back off Mira, seemed like a fresh insult. I should lose a few pounds, Diana admonished herself. No more. sour cream and chopped egg yolk with her caviar. She tried to shake herself out of her random thoughts. The fact was that there were only three keys to the elevator. Consuela would not pal around with a woman like Mira Chen, and the second key was sitting tight in Diana’s purse.